‘What’s this?’ I demanded in outrage.
‘Aye, well, d’ you see,’ began Hector nimbly. ‘’Tis my creels. I have no bait for tsem.’
‘You’re not telling me that barrel is full of bad fish?’ I expostulated.
‘No full,’ he disclaimed. ‘No more than half, just.’
I opened the door of the car and the smell made me reel back. ‘I’m not driving all the way back to Bruach with that appalling stink in the car,’ I told him emphatically.
‘It is too big to go into tse boot,’ Hector explained. ‘Anyway, it will no be so bad once we get goin’,’ he hastened to assure me. ‘Wis tse windows open we’ll likely not notice tse smell, I doubt.’
‘I am not taking that barrel back to Bruach,’ I said firmly. ‘You’ll have to take it out.’
He turned and scratched away under his cap. ‘Indeed I don’t know how will we get it out wisout spillin’ it,’ he mumbled. ‘It was bad enough gettin’ it in just but if we have to take it out again I believe it will spill for sure.’ I believed that too and my moment of hesitation gave him his chance to plead further. ‘An’ see I cannot get bait anywhere at all and tsere’s creels lyin’ on tse shore for want of it an’ tse lobsters waitin’ tsere in tse sea to be caught.’
‘You’re breaking my heart,’ I snapped. It was by no means the first time Hector had played such a confidence trick on me. ‘What about the boat you came to see?’ I taxed him.
He scuffed his boot on the ground. ‘Aye, well, tsey must have sold it a while back,’ he disclosed in a chastened mutter.
‘Hector!’ I upbraided him furiously. ‘You really are a bounder. You knew perfectly well there was no boat for you to see and you knew perfectly well if you’d mentioned one word to me about coming to buy lobster bait you would have been left behind in Bruach.’
His eyes widened guilelessly. ‘I didn’t buy it,’ he denied. ‘Tsey wouldn’t take anytsing for it.’ I blinked. If they wouldn’t take anything for it then I reckoned the bait must be really putrid. Hector brightened, assuming the fact that he had got something for nothing would help me to accept the situation more easily. ‘Tsey had it since a whiley now y’see, an’ tsey were sayin’ it’s after losin’ some of it’s liquor so tsey’re wantin’ rid of it.’
‘It smells to me as if they’ve kept it for years,’ I remarked bitterly.
‘Three, anyway,’ supplied Erchy.
I knew I was beaten since if I insisted on the bait being taken out of the car then Hector and possibly Erchy too would see to it that a good deal more of the liquor would be lost and most of it would be lost inside my car. The resulting graveolence would, I knew, linger for months afterwards. For me the day finally dissolved into wretchedness. I flopped angrily into my seat. There was no room now for Erchy in the back of the car and he had to sit at the front and nurse Morag on his knee which meant that I too was cramped. With Morag’s elbow in my shoulder and without my cushion for support my driving position was exceedingly uncomfortable and as I drove through the mist and rain to the farm where I was to collect my chickens I cursed Hector and all his works. Fortunately there was no hitch with the chickens. I handed the box to Hector.
‘Look after those for me,’ I commanded. ‘And don’t you dare open the lid for fear they’ll be overcome by fumes.’
Nauseated by the smell of the rotting bait and seething over Hector’s duplicity I kept my jaws clenched and my foot as well down on the accelerator as I dared. Hector was not a nice man, I told myself firmly, and from henceforth I must cease to regard him as the rather lovable rogue whose faults I had always found so easy to condone. He was all rogue; a laggard; a Lothario and a liar and I must ensure that never again would he be given the chance to involve me in any of his schemes.
Back in Bruach Behag came to watch us unload.
‘So you got your bait,’ she complimented her husband, thus dispelling any lingering doubt that the purpose of Hector’s journey had been the collection of the bait. ‘But what have you there?’ she went on, as she saw Hector swinging the speaking tube.
‘Ach, ’tis for Erchy to put in his dog’s ear,’ he told her. ‘He’s always girnin’ the beast’s that deaf he doesn’t know what he’s sayin’.’ He gave it to her to hold while he and Erchy struggled to get the barrel out of the car which mercifully they did without spilling it.
‘Ach, I don’t know how to tell you how pleased I am to get it,’ he said with fervent apology.
‘And I don’t know how to tell you how pleased I am to get rid of it,’ I mimicked acridly.
He raised his voice. ‘Miss Peckwitt’s to get tse first lobster tsat gets into tse creel,’ he promised but seeing no change in the frigidity of my expression he became even more generous. ‘Not tse first one but tse first tree she shall have,’ he vowed, holding up three fingers by way of emphasis.
‘I’ll bloody well deserve them!’ I retorted savagely. None of them had heard me use such an epithet before and their startled expressions made me burst into laughter which Hector instantly interpreted as forgiveness. He stretched his lips into his version of a smile and his wide blue eyes glowed with touching affection.
I let in the clutch but just as the car began to move I remembered something and, braking, I called to Morag. ‘Morag, what did you say to that old man when you came out and caught me in the act of hurling the cushion at his hens?’ I asked her.
She sucked in a smile. ‘Indeed, mo ghaoil, didn’t I tell him you were after wantin’ a sittin’ hen an’ you would be throwin’ the cushion thinkin’ maybe one of his hens would sit on it,’ she told me.
I grinned. ‘I expect he thinks I’m completely mad,’ I said.
‘Ach,’ she demurred but without conviction.
The removal of the barrel of bait had not removed the smell from the car and deciding that a damp interior was preferable to a smelly one I left the doors and windows open while I milked Bonny, fed the hens and transferred my new chickens from their box to the hay lined brooder I had made for them. The chicks appeared healthy enough, I thought, so at least, despite tribulations, the day had not been a complete fiasco. It was not until I went out later to close up the car for the night that I noticed my unposted letters still in the pocket.
The Highlander
She stood alone on the highest of the hill paths, silhouetted against the bloated grey sky and with the brisk, ice-edged wind rippling through the shaggy hair of her coat. The rest of the herd moved on steadily grazing its way down towards the glen and paying no attention to the straggler who, minute by minute, was being left further and further behind. Her yearning eyes followed the progress of her former companions and she lifted her head with its wide sweep of horns to give a loud moo of protest at their desertion. Her fuzzy ears twitched uncomprehendingly as the herd ignored her and her black ringed muzzle – birthmark of the true bred Highland cow – sniffed anxiously. She knew a moment of panic as she perceived how great had become the distance between her and the other cattle and lumbered a few indecisive steps after them, torn between the desire to gallop down the hill to join them and the strange impulse which all morning had been urging her to detach herself from the herd. After one last glance at the receding cows she turned and with steady deliberation plodded back the way she had come.
She had covered about half a mile before she paused, but this time her glance was not in the direction the herd had taken but was one of appraisal of a sheltered hollow in the side of the hill hugged by a crooked outcrop of rocks and fringed by a few stunted and leafless hazels. Quickening her gait she made towards it, the wind frisking her long tail against her legs like a gentle goad. When she reached the hollow she inspected it with restless curiosity but though she found grass there that was as yet unravaged by the winter storms and though she had eaten little since the previous evening her tongue did not curl out to snatch it into her mouth. Instead after several minutes of contemplation she lay down with a small grunt of discomfort and tried unsuccessfully to bring up
her cud. A vanguard of snowflakes swirled experimentally into the hollow, stippling the short moor grass around her; settling easily on her coat and melting as they slid over her wide eyes. Slowly the twisted shapes of the hazels became outlined in white and the wind resolved itself into a steady sibilance.
With the first stab of pain she heaved herself to her feet, her ears twitching; her tail held out stiffly and when the pain had eased she still stood tensely, lifting her hind leg every now and then in an attempt to kick away whatever it was that was biting at her belly. At the second stab she began to pant and her eyes grew wider, showing the whites around the pupils. She was afraid now and yet despite her fear there was an instinctive acceptance of the pain as being a function of her destiny; the culmination of a sequence of events which had begun with the increasing heaviness of her belly; her desire to seek for certain herbs among the grass; her unease of the morning and the compulsion to get away from the rest of the herd.
As the pain again left her she lay down giving a plaintive gasp as her swollen body touched the ground. Almost immediately the pain returned, convulsing her belly and, agitated by its intensity she half rose but the pain was swifter and shorter than the earlier ones and she sagged down before she was fully on her feet. The spasms now followed quickly, one after another, boring through her body and between each spasm she rested her head on the ground while her steamy breath escaped with heavy whimperings from her nostrils. She became aware that under her tail there was movement and she wanted to turn herself round to discover what it was but she was no longer in control of her own impulses; the pain was in complete possession of her body and she could only strain desperately trying to rid herself of its grip while snatching at moments of respite to gather strength for the next spasm. Suddenly she lifted her head and gave a sharp, short bellow that was compounded of pain and fear. She tried vainly to struggle to her feet; her body contracted violently once, twice, thrice and as the third contraction rid her of the pain she heard a stifled nicker. Turning her head to investigate she saw the tiny, wet, brown body of her calf struggling on the snowy ground. Her eyes dilated with wonder and alarm; her body throbbed with compassion and then, swamped by a flood of mother love she rose quickly to her feet and turning herself round began to croon and lick at him with gentle urgency. As the calf tried to rise she licked the slime from his tight-curled coat with her rough tongue and when he managed shakily to gain his feet she nuzzled him towards the warmth and shelter of her body quivering with joy when she felt the firm little head pushing against her belly and the wet explorative muzzle bunting excitedly at her distended udder. Her body relaxed as his mouth eventually closed on one of her teats and he began to suck, weakly at first and then with increasing purpose while his small tail swung ecstatically as the thick, warm colostrum trickled down his gullet. Carefully the cow shifted herself to a more comfortable position and as her long-lashed lids drooped over eyes that were opaque with the rapture of motherhood she brought up her cud and chewed contentedly.
The calf continued to suck, sheltered by her body from the cold wind and the thickening snow and when he was replete he collapsed on the ground. With worried croonings she nudged him up on to his tottery feet and towards the shelter of a rock where, with her hoof, she scraped the snow from a patch of coarse grass. Understanding her action the calf lay down and, tucking his head into his flank, he slept while his mother horned away the snow from sedge and heather clumps and blew upon it with her warm breath before she began to graze. When the after-birth came she ate it instinctively, licking the grass where it had been to obliterate any trace of smell that might attract a roaming fox and as evening showed greyly through the still falling snow she lay down beside her calf, positioning her head so that it was a roof protecting him from the blizzard.
At the first hint of dawn she roused him with the diligence of her attentions and encouraged him once again to relieve the heaviness of her udder. He was sturdier now and found the teats without difficulty and when at last he was satisfied instead of lying down he kicked up his back legs and almost fell in the attempt to express his delight. The cow moved forward three or four steps and lowed to him to follow. The calf lurched after her and rubbed himself against her flank. She moved forward again still calling to him persuasively and as he gambolled after her, his shaky legs gaining strength with every step, he answered her with thin pules of complaint.
The blizzard had ceased with the dawn; the wind had dropped to a wavering breeze and the emerging sun flushed the whitened moors. The cow began slowly climbing back towards the path where she had parted from her companions the previous day, stopping frequently to give a reassuring and proprietory lick at her calf. When she reached the path she stood and gave a loud enquiring bellow that the bare hills echoed and the snow blanketed moors absorbed. She listened intently and as if in response bellowed again, assertively. Raising her muzzle she sniffed into the breeze and as the scent of the herd reached her she gave a further bellow that was unmistakeably triumphant. Resolutely she made towards the glen, the fresh snow compacting beneath her hooves, her calf trotting confidently by her side.
In a very short time now she and her calf would be joining the herd.
Tizzie
As I threw out the water after having washed up my tea things I saw Old Alistair coming to the cottage. ‘He Breeah!’ I called in answer to his greeting and going inside I took a bottle of nettle beer and a glass from the larder and stood by the door waiting for him. Except for Janet’s house where he was to be found most evenings waiting his turn to read the paper and also holding forth at the subsequent ceilidh Alistair rarely bothered to visit any of his neighbours but in summer he sometimes made an excuse to call on me to drink a glass or two of my nettle beer. He was a vociferous traditionalist constantly proclaiming the industriousness of the women of his mother’s generation while affecting to despise the present-day women of Bruach because they no longer devoted themselves to such time-honoured occupations as spinning and weaving and dyeing wool; grinding their own oatmeal between the quern stones and preparing medicines and ointments from the wild plants and herbs which were to be found on the moors. They were ‘spoiled with the vans’ he was frequently heard to declare.
Alistair’s own mother, he was fond of telling me, had regularly made not nettle beer but nettle tea for her family and he claimed that this annual ‘nettle scourin’ as he called it kept both adults and children healthy for the rest of the year. When I suggested he should make his own nettle tea he looked at me askance. It was not a man’s place to do such things, he informed me though being a bachelor he regularly cooked and cleaned for himself.
Whenever Alistair came he was always careful to bring as recompense for the beer some small gift which he thought might interest me: a fossil ammonite; a hollowed out tonka bean; an unusual pipe fish which he had caught and which, because of its hard, scaly skin, had in drying out retained its living shape were some of the things he bestowed on me and which were added to my collection. He was always careful too to come on a nice day so that he could insist on drinking his beer outside for despite his tendency to rant he was a shy man and since his traditionalism led him to deplore the efforts I had made to modernize my cottage he preferred to stay outside rather than feel himself constrained to express his contempt for them too strongly. He had already informed me he did not like the new windows which had been installed, maintaining that they were ‘misliked by the walls’ and when he saw my new cooking stove for the first time he denounced it grouchily as looking as out of place in a croft kitchen as a giraffe would look in a cow byre, a comment which when I retailed it to Morag brought the response: ‘Ach, that man is so far back he cannot even taste a cake that has been baked in an oven.’
I untied the string from round the neck of the bottle and eased out the cork; the beer foamed over the glass as I handed it to Alistair who eyed it approvingly and as he took the glass in his right hand he thrust in front of me the spread palm of his left hand on which reposed
three tiny creagags which he had caught while fishing off the rocks. Large creagags were greatly enjoyed by the Bruachites but I found them glutinous and bony; the small ones were usually thrown back into the sea as being useless for anything but when I saw the fish Alistair offered I exclaimed with delight.
‘No wonder Tizzie is excited,’ I told him.
Tizzie had joined me one day in early summer when, having been too plagued by the midges to continue working on the croft and having been too loath to spend such a warm day indoors, I had in desperation taken my boat and rowed out until I was far enough away from the shore to escape the attentions of the midges. It was sultry on the land and so calm on the sea that when I rested on my oars the drips from the blades were the only discernible ruffle on the surface of the water and after rowing aimlessly for some time I shipped the oars and allowing the boat to drift with the tide I rejoiced in the coolness and the ever absorbing pastime of peering down into the green depths. Shifting my position after a time to the other side of the boat I glanced up to see a black-back gull swooping repeatedly at something on the sea well astern of the boat but it was a minute or two before I could make out the tiny, panic-stricken baby guillemot which was paddling frantically as it tried to escape the gull’s attack. Every time the gull swooped for the kill the chick dived but the time it could remain submerged was limited and as it bobbed to the surface the enemy came again, the cruel beak ready to snatch and shake the life out of its victim before tearing out its entrails. The black-back’s manoeuvres were unhurried. The chick would soon tire and the gull had only to continue swooping until the guillemot was too exhausted to dive and then he would merely have to lift his prey from the water.
Beautiful Just! Page 9